Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 11

by James Bruce

 

 

CHAP. XI.

 

Various Customs in Abyssinia similar to those in Persia, &c.—A bloody Banquet described, &c.

 

For the sake of regularity, I shall here notice what might clearly be inferred from what is gone before. The crown of Abyssinia is hereditary, and has always been so, in one particular family, supposed to be that of Solomon by the queen of Saba, Negesta Azab, or queen of the south. It is nevertheless elective in this line; and there is no law of the land, nor custom, which gives the eldest son an exclusive title to succeed to his father.

 

The practice has indeed been quite the contrary: when, at the death of a king, his sons are old enough to govern, and, by some accident, not yet sent prisoners to the mountain, then the eldest, or he that is next, and not confined, generally takes possession of the throne by the strength of his father's friends; but if no heir is then in the low country, the choice of the king is always according to the will of the minister, which passes for that of the people; and, his inclination and interest being to govern, he never fails to choose an infant whom thereafter he directs, ruling the kingdom absolutely during the minority, which generally exhausts, or is equal to the term of his life.

 

From this flow all the misfortunes of this unhappy country. This very defect arises from a desire to institute a more than ordinary perfect form of government; for the Abyssinians first position was, "Woe be to the kingdom whose king is a child;" and this they know must often happen when succession is left to the course of nature. But when there was a choice to be made out of two hundred persons all of the same family, all capable of reigning, it was their own fault, they thought, if they had not always a prince of proper age and qualification to rule the kingdom, according to the necessities of the times, and to preserve the succession of the family in the house of Solomon, agreeable to the laws of the land. And indeed it has been this manner of reasoning, good at first view, though found afterwards but too fallacious, which has ruined their kingdom in part, and often brought the whole into the utmost hazard and jeopardy.

 

The king is anointed with plain oil of olives, which, being poured upon the crown of his head, he rubs into his long hair indecently enough with both his hands, pretty much as his soldiers do with theirs when they get access to plenty of butter.

 

The crown is made in the shape of a priest's mitre, or head-piece; it is a kind of helmet, covering the king's forehead, cheeks, and neck. It is lined with blue taffety; the outside is half gold and half silver, of the most beautiful filligrane work.

 

The crown, in Joas's time, was burnt, with part of the palace, on that day when Ras Michael's dwarf was shot in his own house before him. The present was since made by the Greeks from Smyrna, who have large appointments here, and work with very great taste and elegance, though they have not near so much encouragement as formerly.

 

Upon the top of the crown was a ball of red glass, or chrystal, with several bells of different colours within it. It seems to me to have formerly been no better than part of the stopper of a glass-decanter. Be that as it may, it was lost in Yasous's time at the defeat of Sennaar, It was found, however, by a Mahometan, and brought by Guangoul, chief of the Bertuma Galla, to the frontiers of Tigrè, where Michael, governor of that province, went with an army in great ceremony to receive it, and, returning with it, gave it to king Yasous, making thereby a great advance towards the king's favour.

 

Some people^[1], among the other unwarranted things they have advanced, have said, That, at the king's coronation, a gold ear-ring is put into his cars, and a drawn sword into his hand, and that all the people fall down and worship

1 Crown

2 Standard

3 Shield outside

4 Shield inside

5 Javelins

6 Ornement after victory of all Kasmatis

7 Silver Disc worn on Festivals by soldiers of Quality. him; but there is no such ceremony in use, and exhibitions of this kind, made by the king in public, at no period seem to have suited the genius of this people. Formerly his face was never seen, nor any part of him, excepting sometimes his foot. He sits in a kind of balcony, with lattice-windows and curtains before him. Even yet he covers his face on audiences or public occasions, and when in judgment. On cases of treason, he sits within his balcony, and speaks through a hole in the side of it, to an officer called Kal-Hatzé, the "voice or word of the king," by whom he sends his questions, or any thing else that occurs, to the judges who are seated at the council-table.

 

The king goes to church regularly, his guards taking possession of every avenue and door through which he is to pass, and nobody is allowed to enter with him, because he is then on foot, excepting two officers of his bed-chamber who support him. He kisses the threshold and side-posts of the church-door, the steps before the altar, and then returns home: sometimes there is service in the church, sometimes there is not; but he takes no notice of the difference. He rides up stairs into the presence-chamber on a mule, and lights immediately on the carpet before his throne; and I have sometimes seen great indecencies committed by the said mule in the presence-chamber, upon a Persian carpet.

 

An officer called Scrach Massery, with a long whip, begins cracking and making a noise, worse than twenty French postillions, at the door of the palace before the dawn of day. This chases away the hyæna and other wild beasts; this, too, is the signal for the king's rising, who sits in judgment every morning fasting, and after that, about eight o'clock, he goes to breakfast.

 

There are six noblemen of the king's own choosing, who are called Baalomaal^[2], or gentlemen of his bed-chamber; four of these are always with him. There is a seventh, who is the chief of these, called Azeleffa el Camisha, groom of the robe, or stole. He is keeper of the king's wardrobe, and the first officer of the bed-chamber. These officers, the black slaves, and some others, serve him as menial servants, and are in a degree of familiarity with him unknown to the rest of the subjects.

 

When the king sits to consult upon civil matters of consequence, he is shut up in a kind of box opposite to the head of the council table. The persons that deliberate sit at the table, and, according to their rank, give their voices, the youngest or lowest officer always speaking first. The first that give their votes are the Shalaka, or colonels of the household-troops. The second are the great butlers, men that have the charge of the king's drink. The third is the Badjerund, or keeper of that apartment in the palace called the lion's house; and after these the keeper of the banqueting-house. The next is called Lika Magwass, an officer that always goes before the king to hinder the pressure of the crowd. In war, when the king is marching, he rides constantly round him at a certain distance, and carries his shield, and his lance; at least he carries a silver shield, and a lance pointed with the same metal, before such kings as do not choose to expose their person. That, however, was not the case in my time, as the king carried the shield himself, black and unadorned, of good buffalo's hide, and his spear sharp-pointed with iron. His silver ornaments were only used when the campaign was over, when these were carried by this officer. Great was the respect shewed formerly to this king in war, and even when engaged in battle with rebels, his own subjects.

 

No prince ever lost his life in battle till the coming of the Europeans into Abyssinia, when both the excommunicating and murdering of their sovereigns seem to have been introduced at the same time. The reader will see, in the course of this history, two instances of this respect being still kept up: the one at the battle of Limjour, where Fasil, pretending that he was immediately to attack Ras Michael, desired that the king might be dressed in his insignia, lest, not being known, he might be slain by the stranger Galla. The next was after the battle of Serbraxos, where the king was thrice in one day engaged with the Begemder troops for a considerable space of time. These insignia, or marks of royalty, are a white horse, with small silver bells at his head, a shield of silver, and a white fillet of fine silk or muslin, but generally the latter, some inches broad, which is tied round the upper part of the head over his hair, with a large double or bow-knot behind, the ends hanging down to the small of his back, or else flying in the air.

 

After the Lika Magwass comes the Palambaras; after him the Fit-Auraris; then the Gera Kasmati, and the Kanya Kasmati, their names being derived from their rank or order in encamping, the one on the right, the other on the left of the king's tent; Kanya and Gera signifying the right and the left; after them the Dakakin Billetana Gueta, or the under chamberlain; then the secretary^[3] for the king's commands; after him the right and left Azages, or generals; after them Rak Massery, after him the basha, after him Kasmati of Damot, then of Samen, then Amhara, and, last of all, Tigrè, before whom stands a golden cup upon a cushion, and he is called Nebrit, as being governor of Axum, or keeper of the book of the law supposed to be there.

 

After the governor of Tigrè comes the Acab Saat, or guardian of the fire, and the chief ecclesiastical officer of the king's household. Some have said that this officer was appointed to attend the king at the time of eating, and that it was his province to order both meat and drink to be withdrawn whenever he saw the king inclined to excess. If this was really his office, he never used it in my time, nor, as far as I could learn, for several reigns before. Besides, no king eats in public, or before any person but slaves; and he never would chuse that time to commit excess, in which he might be controuled by a subject, even if it was that subject's right to be present when the king eats, as it is not.

 

After the Acab Saat comes the first master of the household; then the Betwudet, or Ras; last of all the king gives his sentence, which is final, and sends it to the table, from the balcony where he is then sitting, by the officer called, as aforementioned, Kal-Hatzè.

 

We meet in Abyssinia with various usages, which many have hitherto thought to be peculiar to those ancient nations in which they were first observed; others, not so learned, have thought they originated in Abyssinia. I shall first take notice of those that regard the king and court.

 

The kings of Persia^[4], like these we are speaking of, were eligible in one family only, that of the Arsacidæ, and it was not till that race failed they chose Darius. The title of the king of Abyssinia is, King of Kings; and such Daniel^[5] tells us was that of Nebuchadnezzar. The right of primogeniture does not so prevail in Abyssinia as to exclude election in the person of the younger brothers, and this was likewise the case in Persia^[6].

 

In Persia^[7] a preference was understood to be due to the king's lawful children; but there were instances of the natural child being preferred to the lawful one. Darius, tho' a bastard, was preferred to Isogius, Xerxes's lawful son, and that merely by the election of the people. The same has always obtained in Abyssinia. A very great part of their kings are adulterous bastards; others are the issue of concubines, as we shall see hereafter, but they have been preferred to the crown by the influence of a party, always under name of the Voice of the People.

 

Although the Persian kings^[8] had various palaces to which they removed at different times in the year, Pasagarda, the metropolis of their ancient kings, was observed as the only place for their coronation; and this, too, was the case of Abyssinia with their metropolis of Axum.

 

The next remarkable ceremony in which these two nations agreed, is that of adoration, inviolably observed in Abyssinia to this day, as often as you enter the sovereign's presence. This is not only kneeling^[9], but an absolute prostration. You first fall upon your knees, then upon the palms of your hands, then incline your head and body till your forehead touch the earth; and, in case you have an answer to expect, you lie in that posture till the king, or somebody from him, desires you to rise. This, too, was the custom of Persia; Arrian^[10] says this was first instituted by Cyrus, and this was precisely the posture in which they adored God, mentioned in the book of Exodus.

 

Though the refusal of this ceremony would, in Abyssinia and Persia, be looked upon as rebellion or insult, yet it seems in both nations to have met with a mitigation with regard to strangers, who have refused it without giving any offence. I remember a Mahometan being twice sent by the prince of Mecca into Abyssinia during my stay there, who, neither time, would go farther than to put his hands across upon his breast, with no very great inclination of his head; and this I saw was not thought so extraordinary as to give offence, as it was all he did to his own sovereign and master.

 

We read, indeed, of a very remarkable instance of the dispensing with that ceremony being indirectly, yet plainly, refused in Persia to strangers. Conon^[11], the Athenian, had occasion for an interview with Artaxerxes, king of Persia, upon matters of great concern to both states; "You shall be introduced to the king by me, says the Persian minister to Conon, without any delay; do you only first consider with yourself, whether it is really of any consequence that you should speak with the king yourself, or whether it would not be as well for you to convey to him, by letter, any thing you have to say; for it is absolutely necessary, if you are introduced into the king's presence, that you fall down upon your face and worship him. If this is disagreeable or offensive to you, your business shall nevertheless be equally well and quickly done by me." To which Conon very sensibly replied, "For my part, it never can be offensive to me to shew every degree of respect possible to the person of a king. I only am afraid that this salutation maybe misinterpreted by my citizens, who, being themselves a sovereign state, may look upon this submission of their ambassador as a reproach to themselves, and inconsistent with their independency." Conon, therefore, desired to wave his introduction, and that his business might be done by letters, which was complied with accordingly.

 

I have already mentioned transiently the circumstance of the king not being seen when sitting in council. The manner of it is this: When he had business formerly, he sat constantly in a room of his palace, which communicated with the audience and council by two folding doors or large windows, the bottom of which were about three steps from the ground. These doors, or windows, were latticed with cross bars of wood like a cage, and a thin curtain, or veil of taffety silk was hung within it; so that, upon darkening the inner chamber, the king saw every person in the chamber without, while he himself was not seen at all. Justin^[12] tells us, that the person of the king of Persia was hid to give a greater idea of his majesty; and under Deioces, king of the Medes, a law was made that nobody might look upon the king; but the constant wars in which Abyssinia has been engaged, since the Mahometans took possession of Adel, have occasioned this troublesome custom to be wholly laid aside, unless on particular public occasions, and at council, when they are still observed with the ancient strictness. And we find, in the history of Abyssinia, that the army and kingdom have often owed their safety to the personal behaviour and circumstance of the king distinguishing and exposing himself in battle, which advantage they must have lost had the ancient custom been observed. However, to this day, when he is abroad riding, or sitting in any of his apartments at home where people are admitted, his head and forehead are perfectly covered, and one of his hands covers his mouth, so that nothing but his eyes are seen; his feet, too, are always covered.

 

We learn from Apuleus, that this was a custom in Persia; and this gave an opportunity to the magi to place Oropastus, the brother of Cambyses, upon the throne, instead of Merdis who should have succeeded; but the covering of the face made the difference pass unperceived.

 

It is the constant practice in Abyssinia to beset the king's doors and windows within his hearing, and there, from early morning to night, to cry for justice as loud as possible, in a distressed and complaining tone, and in all the different languages they are masters of, in order to their being admitted to have their supposed grievances heard. In a country so ill governed as Abyssinia is, and so perpetually involved in war, it may be easily supposed there is no want of people, who have real injuries and violence to complain of: But if it were not so, this is so much the constant usage, that when it happens (as in the midst of the rainy season) that few people can approach the capital, or stand without in such bad weather, a set of vagrants are provided, maintained, and paid, whose sole business it is to cry and lament, as if they had been really very much injured and oppressed; and this they tell you is for the king's honour, that he may not be lonely by the palace being too quiet. This, of all their absurd customs, was the most grievous and troublesome to me; and, from a knowledge that it was so, the king, when he was private, often permitted himself a piece of rather odd diversion to be a royal one.

 

There would sometimes, while I was busy in my room in the rainy season, be four or five hundred people, who all at once would begin, some roaring and crying, as if they were in pain, others demanding justice, as if they were that moment suffering, or if in the instant to be put to death; and some groaning and sobbing as if just expiring; and this horrid symphony was so artfully performed that no ear could distinguish but that it proceeded from real distress. I was often so surprised as to send the soldiers at the door to bring in one of them, thinking him come from the country, to examine who had injured him; many a time he was a servant of my own, or some other equally known; or, if he was a stranger, upon asking him what misfortune had befallen him, he would answer very composedly, Nothing was the matter with him; that he had been sleeping all day with the horses; that hearing from the soldiers at the door I was retired to my apartment, he and his companions had come to cry and make a noise under my window, to do me honour before the people, for fear I should be melancholy, by being too quiet when alone; and therefore hoped that I would order them drink, that they might continue with a little more spirit. The violent anger which this did often put me into did not fail to be punctually reported to the king, at which he would laugh heartily; and he himself was often hid not far off, for the sake of being a spectator of my heavy displeasure.

 

These complaints, whether real or feigned, have always for their burden, Rete O Jan hoi, which, repeated quick, very much resembles Prete Janni, the name that was given to this prince, of which we never yet knew the derivation; its signification is, "Do me justice, O my king!"

 

Herodotus^[13] tells us, that in Persia, the people, in great crowds and of both sexes, come roaring and crying to the doors of the palace; and Intaphernes is also said to come to the door of the king making great lamentations.

 

I have mentioned a council of state held in Abyssinia in time of danger or difficulty, where the king sitting invisible, though present, gives his opinion by an officer called Kal-Hatzè. Upon his delivering the lenience from the king the whole assembly rise, and stand upon their feet; and this they must have done the whole time the council lasted had the king appeared there in person. According to the circumstances of the time, the king goes with the majority, or not; and if, upon a division, there is a majority against him, he often punishes the majority on the other side, by sending them to prison for voting against his sentiments; for tho' it is understood, by calling of the meeting, that the majority is to determine as to the eligibility of the measure, the king, by his prerogative, supersedes any majority on the other side, and so far, I suppose, has been an encroachment upon the original constitution. This I understand was the same in Persia.

 

Xerxes^[14], being about to declare war against the Greeks, assembled all the principal chiefs of Asia in council. "That I may not, says he, be thought to act only by my own judgment, I have called you together. At the same time, I think proper to intimate to you, that it is your duty to obey my will, rather than enter into any deliberation or remonstrances of your own."

 

We will now compare some particulars, the dress and ornaments of the two kings. The king of Abyssinia wears his hair long; so did the ancient kings of Persia. We learn this circumstance from Suetonius and Aurelius Victor^[15]. A comet had appeared in the war with Persia, and was looked upon by the Romans as a bad omen. Vespasian laughed at it, and said, if it portended any ill it was to the king of Persia, because, like him, it wore long hair.

 

The diadem was, with the Persians, a mark of royalty, as with the Abyssinians, being composed of the same materials, and worn in the same manner. The king of Abyssinia wears it, while marching, as a mark of sovereignty, that does not impede or incommode him, as any other heavier ornament would do, especially in hot weather. This fillet surrounds his head above the hair, leaving the crown perfectly uncovered. It is an offence of the first magnitude for any person, at this time, to wear any thing upon his head, especially white, unless for Mahometans, who wear caps, and over them a large white turban; or for priests, who wear large turbans of muslin also.

 

This was the diadem of the Persians, as appears from Lucian^[16], who calls it a white fillet about the forehead. In the dialogue between Diogenes and Alexander, the head is said to be tied round with a white fillet^[17]; and Favorinus, speaking of Pompey, whose leg was wound round with a white bandage, says, It is no matter on what part of the body he wears a diadem. We read in Justin^[18], that Alexander, leaping from his horse, by accident wounded Lysimachus in the forehead with the point of his spear, and the blood gushed out so violently that it could not be stanched, till the king took the diadem from his head, and with it bound up the wound; which at that time was looked upon as an omen that Lysimachus was to be king, and so it soon after happened.

 

The kings of Abyssinia anciently sat upon a gold throne, which is a large, convenient, oblong, square seat, like a small bed-stead, covered with Persian carpets, damask, and cloth of gold, with steps leading up to it. It is still richly gilded; but the many revolutions and wars have much abridged their ancient magnificence. The portable throne was a gold stool, like that curule stool or chair used by the Romans, which we see on medals. It was, in the Begemder war, changed to a very beautiful one of the same form inlaid with gold. Xerxes is said to have been spectator of a naval fight sitting upon a gold stool^[19].

 

It is, in Abyssinia, high-treason to sit upon any seat of the king's; and he that presumed to do this would be instantly hewn to pieces, if there was not some other collateral proof of his being a madman. The reader will find, in the course of my history, a very ridiculous accident on this subject, in the king's tent, with Guangoul, king of the Bertuma Galla.

 

It is probable that Alexander had heard of this law in Persia, and disapproved of it; for one day, it being extremely cold, the king, sitting in his chair before the fire, warming and chaffing his legs, saw a soldier, probably a Persian, who had lost his feeling by extreme numbness. The king immediately leaped from his chair, and ordered the soldier to be set down upon it. The fire soon brought him to his senses, but he had almost lost them again with fear, by finding himself in the king's seat. To whom Alexander said, "Remember, and distinguish, how much more advantageous to man my government is than that of the kings of Persia^[20]. By sitting down on my seat, you have saved your life; by sitting on theirs, you would infallibly have lost it."

 

In Abyssinia it is considered as a fundamental law of the land, that none of the royal family, who has any deformity or bodily defect, shall be allowed to succeed to the crown; and, for this purpose, any of the princes, who may have escaped from the mountain of Wechnè, and who are afterwards taken, are mutilated in some of their members, that thus they may be disqualified from ever succeeding. In Persia the same was observed. Procopius^[21] tells us, that Zames, the son of Cabades, was excluded from the throne because he was blind of one eye, the law of Persia prohibiting any person that had a bodily defect to be elected king.

 

The kings of Abyssinia were seldom seen by their subjects. Justin^[22] says, the Persians hid the person of their king to increase their reverence for his majesty. And it was a law of Deioces^[23], king of the Medes, that nobody should be permitted to see the king; which regulation was as ancient as the time of Semiramis, whose son, Ninyas, is said to have grown old in the palace, without ever having been known by being seen out of it.

 

This absurd usage gave rise to many abuses. In Persia^[24] it produced two officers, who were called the king's eyes, and the king's ear, and who had the dangerous employment, I mean dangerous for the subject, of seeing and hearing for their sovereign. In Abyssinia, as I have just said, it created an officer called the king's mouth, or voice, for, being seen by nobody, he spoke of course in the third person, "Hear what the king says to you, which is the usual form of all regal mandates in Abyssinia; and what follows has the force of law. In the same stile, Josephus thus begins an edict of Cyrus king of Persia, "Cyrus the king says^[25],"—And speaking of Cambyses's rescript, "Cambyses the king says thus,"—And Esdras also, "Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia^[26],"—And Nebuchadnezzar says to Holofernes, "Thus saith the Great King, Lord of the whole earth^[27];"—and this was probably the origin of edicts, when writing was little used by sovereigns, and little understood by the subject.

 

Solemn hunting-matches were always in use both with the kings of Abyssinnia and those of Persia^[28]. In both kingdoms it was a crime for a subject to strike the game till such time as the king had thrown his lance at it. This absurd custom was repealed by Artaxerxes Longimanus in one kingdom^[29], and by Yasous the Great in the other, so late as the beginning of the last century.

 

The kings of Abyssinia are above all laws. They are supreme in all causes ecclesiastical and civil; the land and persons of their subjects are equally their property, and every inhabitant of their kingdom is born their slave; if he bears a higher rank it is by the king's gift; for his nearest relations are accounted nothing better. The same obtained in Persia. Aristotle calls the Persian generals and nobles, slaves of the great king^[30]. Xerxes, reproving Pytheus the Lydian when seeking to excuse one of his sons from going to war, says, "You that are my slave, and bound to follow me with your wife and all your family^[31]."—And Gobryas^[32] says to Cyrus, "I deliver myself to you, at once your companion and your slave."

 

There are several kinds of bread in Abyssinia, some of different sorts of teff, and some of tocusso, which also vary in quality. The king of Abyssinia eats of wheat bread, though not of every wheat, but of that only that grows in the province of Dembea, therefore called the king's food. It was so with the kings of Persia, who ate wheat bread, Herodotus says, but only of a particular kind, as we learn from Strabo^[33].

 

I have shewn, in the course of the foregoing history, that it always has been, and still is the custom of the kings of Abyssinia, to marry what number of wives they choose; that these were not, therefore, all queens; but that among them there was one who was considered particularly as queen, and upon her head was placed the crown, and she was called Iteghè.

 

Thus, in Persia, we read that Ahasuerus loved Esther^[34], who had found grace in his sight more than the other virgins, and he had placed a golden crown upon her head. And Josephus^[35] informs us, that, when Esther^[36] was brought before the king, he was exceedingly delighted with her, and made her his lawful wife, and when she came into the palace he put a crown upon her head; whether placing the crown upon the queen's head had any civil effect as to regency in Persia as it had in Abyssinia, is what history does not inform us.

 

I have already observed, that there is an officer called Serach Massery, who watches before the king's gate all night, and at the dawn of day cracks a whip to chace the wild beasts out of the town. This, too, is the signal for the king to rise, and sit down in his judgment-seat. The same custom was observed in Persia. Early in the morning an officer entered the king's chamber, and said to him "Arise, O king! and take charge of those matters which Oromasdes has appointed you to the care of."

 

The king of Abyssinia never is seen to walk, nor to set his foot upon the ground, out of his palace; and when he would dismount from the horse or mule on which he rides, he has a servant with a stool, who places it properly for him for that purpose. He rides into the anti-chamber to the foot of his throne, or to the stool placed in the alcove of his tent. We are told by Athenaeus^[37] such was the practice in Persia, whose king never set his foot upon the ground out of his palace.

 

The king of Abyssinia very often judges capital crimes himself. It is reckoned a favourable judicature, such as, Claudian says, that of a king in person should be, "Piger ad pænas, ad præmia velox." No man is condemned by the king in person to die for the first fault, unless the crime be of a horrid nature, such as parricide or sacrilege. And, in general, the life and merits of the prisoner are weighed against his immediate guilt; so that if his first behaviour has had more merit towards the state than his present delinquency is thought to have injured it, the one is placed fairly against the other, and the accused is generally absolved when the sovereign judges alone.

 

Herodotus^[38] praises this as a maxim of the kings of Persia in capital judgments, almost in the very words that I have just now used; and he gives an instance of it:—Darius had condemned Sandoces, one of the king's judges, to be crucified for corruption, that is, for having given false judgment for a bribe. The man was already hung up on the cross, when the king, considering with himself how many good services he had done, previous to this, the only offence which he had committed, ordered him to be pardoned.

 

The Persian king, in all expeditions, was attended by judges. We find in Herodotus^[39], that, in the expedition of Cambyses, ten of the principal Egyptians were condemned to die by these judges for every Persian that had been slain by the people of Memphis. Six judges always attend the king of Abyssinia to the camp, and, before them, rebels taken on the field are tried and punished on the spot.

 

People that the king distinguished by favour, or for any public action, were in both kingdoms presented with gold chains, swords, and bracelets^[40]. These in Abyssinia are understood to be chiefly rewards of military service; yet Poncet received a gold chain from Yasous the Great. The day before the battle of Serbraxos, Ayto Engedan received a silver bridle and saddle, covered with silver plates, from Ras Michael; and the night after that battle I was myself honoured with a gold chain from the king upon my reconciliation with Guebra Mascal, who, for his behaviour that day, had a large revenue most deservedly assigned to him, and a considerable territory, consisting of a number of rich villages, a present known to be more agreeable to him than a mere mark of honour.

 

A stranger of fashion, particularly recommended as I was, not needy in point of money, nor depending from day to day upon government for subsistence, is generally provided with one or more villages to furnish him with what articles he may need, without being obliged to have recourse to the king or his ministers for every necessary. Amha Yasous, prince of Shoa, had a large and a royal village, Emfras, given him to supply him with food for his table; he had another village in Karoota for wine; a village in Dembea, the king's own province, for his wheat; and another in Begemder for cotton cloths for his servants; and so of the rest. After I was in the king's service I had the villages that belonged to the posts I occupied; and one called Geesh, in which arises the sources of the Nile, a village of about 18 houses, given me by the king at my own request; for I might have had a better to furnish me with honey, and confirmed to me by the rebel Waragna Fasil, who never suffered me to grow rich by my rents, having never allowed me to receive but two large jars, so bitter with lupines that they were of no sort of use to me. I was a gentle master, nor ever likely to be opulent from the revenues of that country; and more especially so, as I had under me, as my lieutenant^[41], an officer commanding the horse, whose thoughts were much more upon Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre than any gains he could get in Abyssinia by his employments.

 

Thucydides^[42] informs us, that Themistocles had received great gifts from Artaxerxes king of Persia, when settled at Magnesia; the king had given him that city for bread, Lampsacus for wine, and Myuns to furnish him with victuals. To these Athenaeus adds two more, Palæscepsis and Percope, to yield him clothing and furniture. This precisely, to this day, is the Abyssinian idea, when they conceive they are entertaining men of rank; for strangers, that come naked and vagabond among them, without name and character, or means of subsistence, such as the Greeks in Abyssinia, are always received as beggars, and neglected as such, till hunger sets their wits to work to provide for the present exigency, and low intrigues and practices are employed afterwards to maintain them in the little advancements which they have acquired, but no honour or confidence follows, or very rarely.

 

In Abyssinia, when the prisoner is condemned in capital cases, he is not again remitted to prison, which is thought cruel, but he is immediately carried away, and the sentence executed upon him. I have given several instances of this in the annals of the country. Abba Salama, the Acab Saat, was condemned by the king the morning he entered Gondar, on his return from Tigré, and immediately hanged, in the garment of a priest, on a tree at the door of the king's palace. Chremation, brother to the usurper Socinios, was executed that same morning; Guebra Denghel, Ras Michael's son-in-law, was likewise executed that same day, immediately after judgment; and so were several others. The same was the practice in Persia, as we learn from Xenophon^[43], and more plainly from Diodorus^[44].

 

The capital punishments in Abyssinia are the cross. Socinios^[45] first ordered Arzo, his competitor, who had fled for assistance and refuge to Phineas king of the Falasha, to be crucified without the camp. We find the same punishment inflicted by Artaxerxes upon Haman^[46], who was ordered to be affixed to the cross till he died. And Polycrates of Samos, Cicero tells us^[47], was crucified by order of Orætis, prætor of Darius.

 

The next capital punishment is flaying alive. That this barbarous execution still prevails in Abyssinia is already proved by the fate of the unfortunate Woosheka, taken prisoner in the campaign of 1769 while I was in Abyssinia; a sacrifice made to the vengeance of the beautiful Ozoro Esther, who, kind and humane as she was in other respects, could receive no atonement for the death of her husband. Socrates^[48] says, that Manes the heretic was flayed alive by order of the king of Persia, and his skin made into a bottle. And Procopius^[49] informs us, that Pacurius ordered Basicius to be flayed alive, and his skin made into a bottle and hung upon a high tree. And Agathias^[50] mentions, that the same punishment was inflicted upon Nachorages more majorum, according to ancient custom.

 

Lapidation, or stoning to death, is the next capital punishment in Abyssinia. This is chiefly inflicted upon strangers called Franks, for religious causes. The Catholic priests in Abyssinia that have been detected there, in these latter days, have been stoned to death, and their bodies lie still in the streets of Gondar, in the squares or waste-places, covered with the heaps of stones which occasioned their death by being thrown at them. There are three of these heaps at the church of Abbo, all covering Franciscan friars; and, besides them, a small pyramid over a boy who was stoned to death with them, about the first year of the reign of David the IV.^[51] This boy was one of four sons that one of the Franciscan friars had had by an Abyssinian woman in the reign of Oustas. In Persia we find, that Pagorasus (according to Ctesias^[52]) was stoned to death by the order of the king; and the same author says, that Pharnacyas, one of the murderers of Xerxes, was stoned to death likewise.

 

Among capital punishments may be reckoned likewise the plucking out of the eyes, a cruelty which I have but too often seen committed in the short stay that I made in Abyssinia. This is generally inflicted upon rebels. I have already mentioned, that, after the slaughter of the battle of Fagitta, twelve chiefs of the Pagan Galla, taken prisoners by Ras Michael, had their eyes torn out, and were afterwards abandoned to starve in the valleys below the town. Several prisoners of another rank, noblemen of Tigré, underwent the same misfortune; and, what is wonderful, not one of them died in the operation, nor its consequences, though performed in the coarsest manner with an iron forceps, or pincers. Xenophon^[53] tells us, that this was one of the punishments used by Cyrus. And Ammianus Marcellinus^[54] mentions, that Sapor king of Persia banished Arsaces, whom he had taken prisoner to a certain castle, after having pulled out his eyes.

 

The dead bodies of criminals slain for treason, murder, and violence, on the high-way at certain times, are seldom buried in Abyssinia. The streets of Gondar are strewed with pieces of their carcases, which bring the wild beasts in multitudes into the city as soon as it becomes dark, so that it is scarcely possible for any to walk in the night. Too many instances of this kind will be found throughout my narrative. The dogs used to bring pieces of human bodies into the house, and court-yard, to eat them in greater security. This was most disgustful to me, but so often repeated, that I was obliged to leave them in possession of such fragments. We learn from Qiuntus Curtius^[55], that Darius having ordered Charidamus to be put to death, and finding afterwards that he was innocent, endeavoured to stop the executioner, though it was too late, as they had already cut his throat; but, in token of repentance, the king allowed him the liberty of burial.

 

I have taken notice, up and down throughout my history, that the Abyssinians never fight in the night. This too was a rule among the Persians^[56].

 

Notwithstanding the Abyssinians were so anciently and nearly connected with Egypt, they never seem to have made use of paper, or papyrus, but imitated the practice of the Persians, who wrote upon skins, and they do so this day. This arises from their having early been Jews. In Parthia, likewise, Pliny^[57] informs us, the use of papyrus was absolutely unknown; and though it was discovered that papyrus grew in the Euphrates, near Babylon, of which they could make paper, they obstinately rather chose to adhere to their ancient custom of weaving their letters on cloth of which they made their garments. The Persians, moreover, made use of parchment for their records^[58], to which all their remarkable transactions were trusted; and to this it is probably owing we have so many of their customs preserved to this day. Diodorus Siculus^[59], speaking of Ctesias, says, he verified every thing from the royal parchments themselves, which, in obedience to a certain law, are all placed in order, and afterwards were communicated to the Greeks.

 

From this great resemblance in customs between the Persians and Abyssinians following the fashionable way of judging about the origin of nations, I should boldly conclude that the Abyssinians were a colony of Persians, but this is very well known to be without foundation. The customs, mentioned as only peculiar to Persia, were common to all the east; and they were lost when those countries were over-run and conquered by those who introduced barbarous customs of their own. The reason why we have so much left of the Persian customs is, that they were written, and so not liable to alteration; and, being on parchment, did also contribute to their preservation. The history which treats of those ancient and polished nations has preserved few fragments of their manners entire from the ruins of time; while Abyssinia, at war with nobody, or at war with itself only, has preserved the ancient customs which it enjoyed in common with all the east, and which were only lost in other kingdoms by the invasion of strangers, a misfortune Abyssinia has never suffered since the introduction of letters.

 

Before I finish what I have to say upon the manners of this nation, having shewn that they are the same people with the ancient Egyptians, I would inquire, whether there is the same conformity of rules in the dietetique regimen, between them and Egypt, that we should expect to find from such relation? This is a much surer way of judging than by resemblance of external customs.

 

The old Egyptians, as we are told by sacred scripture, did not eat with strangers; but I believe the observation is extended farther than ever scripture meant. The instance given of Joseph's brethren not being allowed to eat with the Egyptians was, because Joseph had told Pharaoh that his brethren^[60], and Jacob his father, were shepherds, that he might get from the Egyptians the land of Goshen, a land, as the name imports, of pasturage and grass, which the Nile never overflowed, and it was therefore in possession of the shepherds. Now the shepherds, we are told, were the direct natural enemies of the Egyptians who lived in towns. The shepherds also sacrificed the god whom the Egyptians worshipped. We cannot (says Moses^[61]) sacrifice in this land the abomination of the Egyptians, lest they stone us. If the Egyptians did not eat with them, so neither would they with the Egyptians; but it is a mistake that the Egyptians did not eat flesh as well as the shepherds, it was only the flesh of certain animals they differed on, and did not eat.

 

The Egyptians worshipped the cow^[62], and the shepherds lived upon her flesh, which made them a separate people, that could not eat nor communicate together; and the very knowledge of this was, as we are informed by scripture, the reason why Joseph told Pharaoh, when he asked him what profession his brethren were of, "Your servants, says Joseph, are shepherds, and their employment the feeding of cattle;" and this was given out, that the land of Goshen might be allotted to them, and so they and their descendents he kept separate from the Egyptians, and not exposed to mingle in their abominations. Or, though they had abstained from these abominations, they could not kill cattle for sacrifice or for food. They would have raised ill-will against themselves, and, as Moses says, would have been stoned, and so the end of bringing them to Goshen would have been frustrated, which was to nurse them in a plentiful land, in peace and security, till they should attain to be a mighty people, capable of subduing and filling the land to which, at the end of their captivity, God was to lead them.

 

The Abyssinians neither eat nor drink with strangers, though they have no reason for this; and it is now a mere prejudice, because the old occasion for this regulation is lost. They break, or purify, however, every vessel a stranger of any kind shall have ate or drank in. The custom then is copied from the Egyptians, and they have preserved it, tho' the Egyptian reason does no longer hold.

 

Some historians say, the Egyptian women anciently enjoyed a full liberty of intercourse with the males, which was not the case in the generality of eastern nations; and we must, therefore, think it was derived from Abyssinia; for there the women live, as it were, in common, and their enjoyments and gratification have no other bounds but their own will. They, however, pretend to have a principle, that, if they marry, they should be wives of one husband; and yet this principle does not bind, but, like most of the other duties, serves to reason upon, and to laugh at, in conversation. Herodotus tells it was the same with the Egyptians^[63].

 

The Egyptians made no account of the mother what her state was; if the father was free, the child followed the condition of the father. This is strictly so in Abyssinia. The king's child by a negro-slave, bought with money, or taken in war, is as near in succeeding to the crown, as any one of twenty children that he has older than that one, and born of the noblest women of the country.

 

The men in Egypt^[64] did neither buy nor sell; the same is the case in Abyssinia at this day. It is infamy for a man to go to market to buy any thing. He cannot carry water or bake bread; but he must wash the cloaths belonging to both sexes, and, in this function, the women cannot help him. In Abyssinia the men carried their burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders, and this difference, we are told, obtained in Egypt^[65]. It is plain, that this buying, in the public market, by women, must have ended whenever jealousy or sequestration of that sex began; for this reason it ended early in Egypt, but, for the opposite reason, it subsists in Abyssinia to this day.

 

It was a sort of impiety in Egypt to eat a calf; and the reason was plain, they worshipped the cow. In Abyssinia, to this day, no man eats veal, although every one very willingly eats a cow. The Egyptian^[66] reason no longer subsists as in the former case, but the prejudice remains, though they have forgot the reason.

 

The Abyssinians eat no wild or water-fowl, not even the goose, which was a great delicacy in Egypt. The reason of this is, that, upon their conversion to Judaism, they were forced to relinquish their ancient municipal customs, as far as they were contrary to the Mosaical law; and the animals, in their country, not corresponding in form, kind, nor name, with those mentioned in the Septuagint, or original Hebrew, it has followed, that there are many of each class that know not whether they are clean or not; and a wonderful confusion and uncertainty has followed through ignorance or mistake, being unwilling to violate the law in any one instance through not understanding it.

 

The abhorrence of the old Egyptians for the bean is well known, and many silly reasons have been assigned for it; but that which has most met the approbation of the most learned men is, in my humble opinion, the weakest of them all. They say, the aversion to the bean arose from its resembling the phallus; but the crux ansata, or the cross with the handle to it, which is put in the hand of every Egyptian hieroglyphic of Isis, Osiris, or whatever the priests have called them, is likewise agreed by the learned to represent the phallus; and the figure of these nudities, without vail or concealment, is plain in all their statues. Now, I would ask, What is the reason why they abhor a bean because it represents these parts which, at the same time, by their own option or choice, are exposed in the hand or person of every figure which they exhibit to public view? The bean, however, is not cultivated in Abyssinia, neither is it in Egypt; lupines grow up in both, and lupines in both are eradicated like a weed, and lupines were what is called faba Ægyptiaca.

 

Though I cannot pretend to know the true reason of this, yet I will venture to give a guess:—The origin of great part of religious observances of Egypt began with the worship of the Nile, and probably at the head of it. The country of the Agows, as well where the Nile rises as in parts more distant, is all a honey country; not only their whole sustenance, but their trade, their tribute to the king, and the maintenance of a great part of the capital, depends upon honey and butter, the common food of the better sort of people when they do not eat flesh; it composes their drink also in mead or hydromel. Now, this country, when uncultivated, naturally produces lupines, and the blossoms of these becoming food for the bees, gives the honey such a bitterness that no person will eat it, or use it any way in food or for drink.—After the king had bestowed the village of Geesh upon me, though with the consent of Fasil its governor, that egregious shuffler, to make the present of no use to me, sent me, indeed, the tribute of the honey in very large jars but it all tasted so much of the lupines that it was of no earthly use whatever. Their constant attention is to weed out this bitter plant; and, when any of those countries are desolated by war, we may expect a large crop of lupines immediately to follow, and, for a time, plenty of bad honey in consequence. It is, then, this destructive bean that Pythagoras, who, it is said, ate no flesh, regarded as an object of detestation; it was equally so among the Abyssinians and Egyptians for the same reason. Both nations, moreover, have an aversion to hogs flesh, and both avoid the touch of dogs.

 

It is here I propose to take notice of an unnatural custom which prevails universally in Abyssinia, and which in early ages seems to have been common to the whole world. I did not think that any person of moderate knowledge in profane learning could have been ignorant of this remarkable custom among the nations of the east. But what still more surprised me is the least pardonable part of the whole, was the ignorance of part of the law of God, the earliest that was given to man, the most frequently noted, insisted upon, and prohibited. I have said, in the course of the narrative of my journey from Masuah, that, a small distance from Axum, I overtook on the way three travellers, who seemed to be soldiers, driving a cow before them. They halted at a brook, threw down the beast, and one of them cut a pretty large collop of flesh from its buttocks, after which they drove the cow gently on as before. A violent outcry was raised in England at hearing this circumstance, which they did not hesitate to pronounce impossible, when the manners and customs of Abyssinia were to them utterly unknown. The Jesuits, established in Abyssinia for above a hundred years, had told them of that people eating, what they call raw meat, in every page, and yet they were ignorant of this. Poncet, too, had done the same, but Poncet they had not read; and if any writer upon Ethiopia had omitted to mention it, it was because it was one of those facts too notorious to be repeated to swell a volume.

 

It must be from prejudice alone we condemn the eating of raw flesh; no precept, divine or human, that I know, forbids it; and if it is true, as later travellers have discovered, that there are nations ignorant of the use of fire, any law against eating raw flesh could never have been intended by God as obligatory upon mankind in general. At any rate, it is certainly not clearly known, whether the eating raw flesh was not an earlier and more general practice than by preparing it with fire; I think it was.

 

Many wise and learned men have doubted whether it was at first permitted to man to eat animal food at all. I do not pretend to give any opinion upon the subject, but many topics have been maintained successfully upon much more slender grounds. God, the author of life, and the best judge of what was proper to maintain it, gave this regimen to our first parents—"Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat^[67]." And though, immediately after, he mentions both beasts and fowls, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, he does not say that he has designed any of these as meat for man. On the contrary, he seems to have intended the vegetable creation as food for both man and beast—"And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so^[68]." After the flood, when mankind began to repossess the earth, God gave Noah a much more extensive permission—"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things^[69]."

 

As the criterion of judging of their aptitude for food was declared to be their moving and having life, a danger appeared of misinterpretation, and that these creatures should be used living; a thing which God by no means intended, and therefore, immediately after, it is said, "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat^[70];" or, as it is rendered by the best interpreters, 'Flesh, or members, torn from living animals having the blood in them, thou shalt not eat.' We see then, by this prohibition, that this abuse of eating living meat, or part of animals while yet alive, was known in the days of Noah, and forbidden after being so known, and it is precisely what is practised in Abyssinia to this day. This law, then, was prior to that of Moses, but it came from the same legislator. It was given to Noah, and consequently obligatory upon the whole world. Moses, however, insists upon it throughout his whole law; which, not only shews that this abuse was common, but that it was deeply rooted in, and interwoven with, the manners of the Hebrews. He positively prohibits it four times in one chapter in Deuteronomy^[71], and thrice in one of the chapters of Leviticus^[72]—"Thou shalt not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; thou shalt pour it upon the earth like water."

 

Although the many instances of God's tenderness to the brute creation, that constantly occur in the Mosaical precepts, and are a very beautiful part of them, and tho' the barbarity of the custom itself might reasonably lead us to think that humanity alone was a sufficient motive for the prohibition of eating animals alive, yet nothing can be more certain, than that greater consequences were annexed to the indulging in this crime than what was apprehended from a mere depravity of manners. One^[73] of the most learned and sensible men that ever wrote upon the sacred scriptures observes, that God, in forbidding this practice, uses more severe certification, and more threatening language, than against any other sin, excepting idolatry, with which it is constantly joined. God declares, "I will set my face against him that eateth blood, in the same manner as I will against him that sacrificeth his son to Moloch; I will set my face against him that eateth flesh with blood, till I cut him off from the people."

 

We have an instance in the life of Saul^[74] that shews the propensity of the Israelites to this crime. Saul's army, after a battle, flew, that is, fell voraciously upon the cattle they had taken, and threw them upon the ground to cut off their flesh, and eat them raw, so that the army was defiled by eating blood, or living animals. To prevent this, Saul caused roll to him a great stone, and ordered those that killed their oxen to cut their throats upon that stone. This was the only lawful way of killing animals for food; the tying of the ox and throwing it upon the ground was not permitted as equivalent. The Israelites did probably in that case as the Abyssinians do at this day; they cut a part of its throat, so that blood might be seen upon the ground, but nothing mortal to the animal followed from that wound. But, after laying his head upon a large stone, and cutting his throat, the blood fell from on high, or was poured on the ground like water, and sufficient evidence appeared the creature was dead before it was attempted to eat it. We have seen that the Abyssinians came from Palestine a very few years after this; and we are not to doubt that they then carried with them this, with many other Jewish customs, which they have continued to this day.

 

The author I last quoted says, that it is plain, from all the books of the eastern nations, that their motive for eating flesh with the life, or limbs of living animals cut off with the blood, was from motives of religion, and for the purposes of idolatry, and so it probably had been among the Jews; for one of the reasons given in Leviticus for the prohibition of eating blood, or living flesh, is, that the people may no longer offer sacrifices to devils, after whom they have gone a whoring^[75]. If the reader chooses to be further informed how very common this practice was, he need only read the Halacoth Gedaloth, or its translation, where the whole chapter is taken up with instances of this kind.

 

That this practice likewise prevailed in Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa, may be collected from various authors. The Greeks had their bloody feasts and sacrifices where they ate living flesh; these were called Omophagia. Arnobius^[76] says, "Let us pass over the horrid scenes presented at the Baccahanlian feast, wherein, with a counterfeited fury, though with a truly depraved heart, you twine a number of serpents around you, and, pretending to be possessed with some god, or spirit, you tear to pieces, with bloody mouths, the bowels of living goats, which cry all the time from the torture they suffer." From all this it appears, that the practice of the Abyssinians eating live animals at this day, was very far from being new, or, what was nonsensically said, impossible. And I shall only further observe, that those of my readers that wish to indulge a spirit of criticism upon the great variety of customs, men and manners, related in this history, or have those criticisms attended to, should furnish themselves with a more decent flock of reading than, in this instance, they seem to have possessed; or, when another example occurs of that kind, which they call impossible, that they would take the truth of it upon my word, and believe what they are not sufficiently qualified to investigate.

 

Consistent with the plan of this work, which is to describe the manners of the several nations through which I passed, good and bad, as I observed them, I cannot avoid giving some account of this Polyphemus banquet, as far as decency will permit me; it is part of the history of a barbarous people; whatever I might wish, I cannot decline it.

 

In the capital, where one is safe from surprise at all times, or in the country or villages, when the rains have become so constant that the valleys will not bear a horse to pass them, or that men cannot venture far from home through fear of being surrounded and swept away by temporary torrents, occasioned by hidden showers on the mountains; in a word, when a man can say he is safe at home, and the spear and shield is hung up in the hall, a number of people of the best fashion in the villages, of both sexes, courtiers in the palace, or citizens in the town, meet together to dine between twelve and one o'clock.

 

A long table is set in the middle of a large room, and benches beside it for a number of guests who are invited. Tables and benches the Portugueze introduced amongst them; but bull hides, spread upon the ground, served them before, as they do in the camp and country now. A cow or bull, one or more, as the company is numerous, is brought close to the door, and his feet strongly tied. The skin that hangs down under his chin and throat, which I think we call the dew-lap in England, is cut only so deep as to arrive at the fat, of which it totally consists, and, by the separation of a few small blood-vessels, six or seven drops of blood only fall upon the ground. They have no stone, bench, nor altar upon which these cruel assassins lay the animal's head in this operation. I should beg his pardon indeed for calling him an assassin, as he is not so merciful as to aim at the life, but, on the contrary, to keep the beast alive till he be totally eat up. Having satisfied the Mosaical law, according to his conception, by pouring these six or seven drops upon the ground, two or more of them fall to work; on the back of the beast, and on each side of the spine they cut skin-deep; then putting their fingers between the flesh and the skin, they begin to strip the hide of the animal half way down his ribs, and so on to the buttock, cutting the skin wherever it hinders them commodiously to strip the poor animal bare. All the flesh on the buttocks is cut off then, and in solid, square pieces, without bones, or much effusion of blood; and the prodigious noise the animal makes is a signal for the company to sit down to table.

 

There are then laid before every guest, instead of plates, round cakes, if I may so call them, about twice as big as a a pan-cake, and something thicker and tougher. It is unleavened bread of a sourish taste, far from being disagreeable, and very easily digested, made of a grain called teff. It is of different colours, from black to the colour of the whitest wheat-bread. Three or four of these cakes are generally put uppermost, for the food of the person opposite to whose seat they are placed. Beneath these are four or five of ordinary bread, and of a blackish kind. These serve the master to wipe his fingers upon; and afterwards the servant, for bread to his dinner.

 

Two or three servants then come, each with a square piece of beef in their bare hands, laying it upon the cakes of teff, placed like dishes down the table, without cloth or any thing else beneath them. By this time all the guests have knives in their hands, and their men have the large crooked ones, which they put to all sorts of uses during the time of war. The women have small clasped knives, such as the worst of the kind made at Birmingham, sold for a penny each.

 

The company are so ranged that one man sits between two women; the man with his long knife cuts a thin piece, which would be thought a good beef-steak in England, while you see the motion of the fibres yet perfectly distinct, and alive in the flesh. No man in Abyssinia, of any fashion whatever, feeds himself, or touches his own meat. The women take the steak and cut it length-ways like strings, about the thickness of your little finger, then crossways into square pieces, something smaller than dice. This they lay upon a piece of the teff bread, strongly powdered with black pepper, or Cayenne pepper, and fossile-salt, they then wrap it up in the teff bread like a cartridge.

 

In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, with each hand resting upon his neighbour's knee, his body stooping, his head low and forward, and mouth open very like an idiot, turns to the one whose cartridge is first ready, who stuffs the whole of it into his mouth, which is so full that he is in constant danger of being choked. This is a mark of grandeur. The greater the man would seem to be, the larger piece he takes in his mouth; and the more noise he makes in chewing it, the more polite he is thought to be. They have, indeed, a proverb that says, "Beggars and thieves only eat small pieces, or without making a noise." Having dispatched this morsel, which he does very expeditiously, his next female neighbour holds forth another cartridge, which goes the same way, and so on till he is satisfied. He never drinks till he has finished eating; and, before he begins, in gratitude to the fair ones that fed him, he makes up two small rolls of the same kind and form; each of his neighbours open their mouths at the same time, while with each hand he puts their portion into their mouths. He then falls to drinking out of a large handsome horn; the ladies eat till they are satisfied, and then all drink together, "Vive la Joye et la Jeunesse!" A great deal of mirth and joke goes round, very seldom with any mixture of acrimony or ill-humour.

 

All this time, the unfortunate victim at the door is bleeding indeed, but bleeding little. As long as they can cut off the flesh from his bones, they do not meddle with the thighs, or the parts where the great arteries are. At last they fall upon the thighs likewise; and soon after the animal, bleeding to death, becomes so tough that the canibals, who have the rest of it to eat, find very hard work to separate the flesh from the bones with their teeth like dogs.

 

In the mean time, those within are very much elevated; love lights all its fires, and every thing is permitted with absolute freedom. There is no coyness, no delays, no need of appointments or retirement to gratify their wishes; there are no rooms but one, in which they sacrifice both to Bacchus and to Venus^[77]. The two men nearest the vacuum a pair have made on the bench by leaving their seats, hold their upper garment like a skreen before the two that have left the bench; and, if we may judge by sound, they seem to think it as great a shame to make love in silence as to eat.—Replaced in their seats again, the company drink the happy couple's health; and their example is followed at different ends of the table, as each couple is disposed. All this passes without remark or scandal, not a licentious word is uttered, nor the most distant joke upon the transaction.

 

These ladies are, for the most part, women of family and character, and they and their gallants are reciprocally distinguished by the name Woodage, which answers to what in Italy they call Cicisbey; and, indeed, I believe that the name itself, as well as the practice, is Hebrew; schus chis beiim, signifies attendants or companions of the bride, or bride's man, as we call it in England. The only difference is, that in Europe the intimacy and attendance continues during the marriage, while, among the Jews, it was permitted only the few days of the marriage ceremony. The aversion to Judaism, in the ladies of Europe, has probably led them to the prolongation of the term.

 

It was a custom of the ancient Egyptians to purge themselves monthly for three days; and the same is still in practice in Abyssinia. We shall speak more of the reason of this practice in the botanical part of our work, where a drawing of a most beautiful tree^[78], used for this purpose, is given.

 

Although we read from the Jesuits a great deal about marriage and polygamy, yet there is nothing which may be averred more truly than that there is no such thing as marriage in Abyssinia, unless that which is contracted by mutual consent, without other form, subsisting only till dissolved by dissent of one or other, and to be renewed or repeated as often as it is agreeable to both parties, who, when they please, cohabit together again as man and wife, after having been divorced, had children by others, or whether they have been married, or had children with others or not. I remember to have once been at Koscam in presence of the Iteghè, when, in the circle, there was a woman of great quality, and seven men who had all been her husbands, none of whom was the happy spouse at that time.

 

Upon separation they divide the children. The eldest son falls to the mother's first choice, and the eldest daughter to the father. If there is but one daughter, and all the rest sons, she is assigned to the father. If there is but one son, and all the rest daughters, he is the right of the mother. If the numbers are unequal after the first election, the rest are divided by lot. There is no such distinction as legitimate and illegitimate children from the king to the beggar; for supposing any one of their marriages valid, all the issue of the rest must be adulterous bastards.

 

One day Ras Michael asked me, before Abba Salama, (the Acab Saat) Whether such things as these promiscuous marriages and divorces were permitted and practised in my country? I excused myself till I was no longer able; and, upon his insisting, I was obliged to answer, That even if scripture had not forbid to us as Christians, as Englishmen the law restrained us from such practices, by declaring polygamy felony, or punishable by death.

 

The king in his marriage uses no other ceremony than this:—He sends an Azage to the house where the lady lives, where the officer announces to her, It is the king's pleasure that she should remove instantly to the palace. She then dresses herself in the best manner, and immediately obeys. Thenceforward he assigns her an apartment in the palace, and gives her a house elsewhere in any part she chuses. Then when he makes her Iteghé, it seems to be the nearest resemblance to marriage; for, whether in the court or the camp, he orders one of the judges to pronounce in his presence, That he, the king, has chosen his hand maid, naming her for his queen; upon which the crown is put upon her head, but she is not anointed.

 

The crown being hereditary in one family, but elective in the person, and polygamy being permitted, must have multiplied these heirs very much, and produced constant disputes, so that it was found necessary to provide a remedy for the anarchy and effusion of royal blood, which was otherwise inevitably to follow. The remedy was a humane and gentle one, they were confined in a good climate upon a high mountain, and maintained there at the public expence. They are there taught to read and write, but nothing else; 750 cloths for wrapping round them, 3000 ounces or gold, which is 30,000 dollars, or crowns, are allowed by the state for their maintenance. These princes are hardly used, and, in troublesome times, often put to death upon the smallest misinformation. While I was in Abyssinia their revenue was so grossly misapplied, that some of them were said to have died with hunger and of cold by the avarice and hard-heartedness of Michael neglecting to furnish them necessaries. Nor had the king, as far as ever I could discern, that fellow-feeling one would have expected from a prince rescued from that very situation himself; perhaps this was owing to his fear of Ras Michael.

 

However that be, and however distressing the situation of those princes, we cannot but be satisfied with it when we look to the neighbouring kingdom of Sennaar, or Nubia. There no mountain is trusted with the confinement of their princes, but, as soon as the father dies, the throats of all the collaterals, and all their descendents that can be laid hold of, are cut; and this is the case with all the black states in the desert west of Sennaar, Dar Fowr, Selé, and Bagirma.

 

Great exaggerations have been used in speaking of the military force of this kingdom. The largest army that ever was in the field (as far as I could be informed from the oldest officers) was that in the rebellion before the battle of Serbraxos. I believe, when they first encamped upon the lake Tzana, the rebel army altogether might amount to about 50,000 men. In about a fortnight afterwards, many had deserted; and I do not think (I only speak by hearsay) that, when the king marched out of Gondar, they were then above 30,000. I believe when Gojam joined, and it was known that Michael and his army were to be made prisoners, that the rebel army increased to above 60,000 men; cowards and brave, old and young, veteran soldiers and blackguards, all came to be spectators of that desirable event, which many of the wisest had despaired of living to see. I believe the king's army never amounted to 26,000 men; and, by desertion and other causes, when we retreated to Gondar, I do not suppose the army was 16,000, mostly from the province of Figré. Fasil, indeed, had not joined; and putting his army of 12,000 men, (I make no account of the wild Galla beyond the Nile) I do not imagine that any king of Abyssinia ever commanded 40,000 effective men at any time, or upon any cause whatever, exclusive of his household troops.

 

Their standards are large staves, surmounted at the top with a hollow ball; below this is a tube in which the staff is fixed; and immediately below the ball, a narrow stripe of silk made forked, or swallow-tailed, like a vane, and seldom much broader. In the war of Begemder we first saw colours like a flag hoisted for king Theodorus. They were red, about eight feet long and near three feet broad; but they never appeared but two days; and the success that attended their first appearance was such that did not bid fair to bring them into fashion.

 

The standards of the infantry have their flags painted two colours crossways—yellow, white, red, or green. The horse have all a lion upon their flag^[79], some a red, some a green, and some a white lion. The black horse have a yellow lion, and over it a white star upon a red flag, alluding to two prophecies, the one, "Judah is a young lion," and the other, "There shall come a star out of Judah." This had been discontinued for want of cloth till the war of Begemder, when a large piece was found in Joas's wardrobe, and was thought a certain omen of his victory, and of a long and vigorous reign. This piece of cloth was said to have been brought from Cairo by Yasous II. for the campaign of Sennaar, and, with the other standards and colours, was surrendered to the rebels when the king was made prisoner.

 

The king's household troops should consist of about 8000 infantry, 2000 of which carry firelocks, and supply the place of archers; bows have been laid aside for near a hundred years, and are only now used by the Waito Shangalla, and some other barbarous inconsiderable nations.

 

These troops are divided into four companies, each under an officer called Shalaka, which answers to our colonel. Every twenty men have an officer, every fifty a second, and every hundred a third; that is, every twenty have one officer who commands them, but is commanded likewise by an officer who commands the fifty; so that there are three officers who command fifty men, six command a hundred, and thirty command five hundred, over whom is the Shalaka; and this body they call Bet, which signifies a house, or apartment, because each of them goes by the name of one of the king's apartments. For example, there is an apartment called Anbasa Bet, or the lion's house, and a regiment carrying that name has the charge of it, and their duty is at that apartment, or that part of the palace where it is; there is another called Jan Bet, or the elephant's house, that gives the name to another regiment; another called Werk Sacala, or the gold house, which gives its name to another corps; and so on with the rest; as for the horse, I have spoken of them already.

 

There are four regiments, that seldom, if ever, amounted to 1600 men, which depend alone upon the king, and are all foreigners, at least the officers; these have the charge of his person while in the field. In times when the king is out of leading-strings, they amount to four or five thousand, and then oppress the country, for they have great privileges. At times when the king's hands are weak, they are kept incomplete out of fear and jealousy, which was the case in my time;—these have been already sufficiently described.

 

Three proclamations are made before the king marches. The first is, "Buy your mules, get ready your provision, and pay your servants, for, after such a day, they that seek me here shall not find me." The second is about a week after, or according as the exigency is pressing; this is, "Cut down the kantuffa in the four quarters of the world, for I do not know where I am going." This kantuffa is a terrible thorn which very much molests the king and nobility in their march, by taking hold of their long hair, and the cotton cloth they are wrapped in. The third and last proclamation is, "I am encamped upon the Angrab, or Kahha; he that does not join me there, I will chastise him for seven years." I was long in doubt what this term of seven years meant, till I recollected the jubilee-year of the Jews, with whom seven years was a prescription of offences, debts, and all trespasses.

 

The rains generally cease the eighth of September; a sickly season follows till they begin again about the 20th of October; they then continue pretty constant, but moderate in quantity, till Hedar St Michael, the eighth of November. All epidemic diseases cease with the end of these rains, and it is then the armies begin to march.

 

 

 

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1. Vid. Le Grande's Hist. of Abyssinia.
2. Baalomaal, which, literally translated, is, Master of his effects, or goods.
3. Hatzé Azazé.
4. Strabo, lib. xv. p. 783. Joseph. lib. xviii. cap. 3. Procop. lib. i. de Bel Pers
5. Dan. chap. ii.
6. Procop. lib. 1. cap. 11.
7. Arrian, lib. ii. cap. 14.
8. Pln in Artax. lib. xv. p. 730.
9. Lucretius, lib. v. Ovid. Metam. lib. i. Lucian, in Navig.
10. Arrian, lib. iv. cap. 11. Exod. chap. 4. Matth. chap. 2.
11. Justin, lib. vi. Omil. Prob.
12. Justin, lib. 2.
13. Herod. lib. iii.
14. Herod. lib. vi.
15. Suet. Vespas. cap. 23, Sex. Aurel. Victor, cap. 23.
16. Lucian. de Votis ceu in Navigio, Esdras, lib. iii.
17. Valor. Maxim. lib. vi. cap. 2.
18. Justin lib. xv.
19. Philostrat. lib. ii.
20. Val. Max. lib. v. cap. 16—Q. Curt. lib. viii.
21. Procop. lib. i. cap. 11.
22. Justin. lib. i.
23. Herod. lib. i.
24. Dio. Chrysost. Orat. 3. pro regno.
25. Joseph. lib. xi. cap. 1.
26. Esdras, cap. 5.
27. Judith, cap. 2.
28. Ctesias in Persicis. Xenephon, lib. i.
29. Plutarch, in Apothegmat.
30. De Mundo.
31. Herod lib. vii.
32. Xenoph. lib. iv.
33. Strabo lib. xv.
34. Esther, chap. ii.
35. Joseph. lib. xi. cap. 6.
36. If I remember right, it is D. Prideaux that says Esther is a Persian word, of no signification. I rather think it is Abyssinian, because it has a signification in that language. Eshté, the masculine, signifies an agreeable present, and is a proper name, of which Esther is the feminine.
37. Athen, lib. xii. cap. 2.
38. Herod, lib. vii.
39. Herod. lib. iii.
40. Xenoph. lib. i. Xenoph. lib. viii.
41. Ammonios, Billetana Gueta to Ajto Confu.
42. Thucyd. lib. i. Strabo, lib. xiv. Theod. Sic. lib. xi.
43. Xenoph. lib. i.
44. Diod. lib. xii.
45. Vide annals of Abyssinia, life of Socinios.
46. Esther, chap vii, and viii.
47. Cicero, lib. v. de Finib.
48. Ecclesiast. Histor. chap, xxii.
49. Procop. lib. i. cap. 5. de Bell. Pers.
50. Agath. lib. iii.
51. See this history of Abyssinia in vit. David IV.
52. Vide Ctesiani Hockerii.
53. Xenoph. lib. i.
54. Amm. Mar. lib. vii.
55. Q. Curt. lib. iii. 2. 19.
56. Q. Curt. v. 12.
57. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xiii. cap. 11.
58. Plin. lib. xiii. cap. 11.
59. Diod. Sic. lib. ii.
60. Genesis, chap. xlvii, ver. 4.
61. Exod. chap. viii. ver. 26.
62. Herod. lib. ii. p. 104. sec. 40.
63. Herodot. p. 121. sect. 92.
64. Herodot. lib. ii. p. 101. sect. 35.
65. Herodot. lib. ii. p. 101. sect. 35.
66. Herodot. lib. ii. p. 104. sect. 41.
67. Gen. chap. i. ver. 20.
68. Gen. chap. i. ver. 30.
69. Gen. chap. ix. ver. 3.
70. Gen. chap. ix. v. 4.
71. Deut. chap. xii.
72. Levit. chap. xvii.
73. Maimon. more. Nebochim.
74. Sam. chap. xiv. ver. 32. 33.
75. Levit. chap. xvii. ver. 7.
76. Arnob. adv. Gent. Clem. Alexan. Sextus Impiricus, lib. iii. cap. 25. and Selden. de Jur. natur. and Gent. cap. 1. lib. vii.
77. In this particular they resemble the Cynics of old, of whom it was said, "Omnia quæ ad Bacchum et Venerem pertinuerint in publico facer." Diogenes Laertius in Vit. Diogen.
78. Vide appendix, article Cusso.
79. The first invention is attributed to the Portuguese.